The Testimonies of Dan & David Hager
I would not be a Christian today if it weren’t for someone ministering in
the prison years ago. No it was not me that was ministered to in prison:
it was my dad. The gospel message that my dad heard and received in prison
was then passed down to me years latter: and now from me to my children.
The effect of one person working one day with one message for one purpose
has now effectively reached thousands for Christ. My name is Dan Hager,
the son of David Hager. I am a preacher today, but would have never been
one, unless someone had first preached the gospel to my dad in prison.
This is his story.
David grew up in a bootlegger's home in the late 1950s in the hills of
North Carolina. To insure that the family business did well David never
went to school. As a result he never learned how to read or write. He
spent most of his childhood helping his step-dad do work either at home or
in the woods at the still. As he grew in this environment so did his love
for the things of the world. He was just a kid when he became a chain
smoker and drug abuser. As a teenage he would help his dad’s side business
of stealing boat motors from a nearby lake. His drug addiction only
worsened each year, and a life style like this usually only leads a person
to one place: prison.
After being picked up by the police for a recent house robbery he found
himself a mid-twenties illiterate thief and drug addict with no purpose or
reason to live any more. On a Sunday afternoon for the first time in his
life this American boy heard a preacher preaching at the jail. After weeks
of sitting in jail the gospel had made its way to him. Since he had never
been to church before none of it made any sense to him. That week he took
one of the Bibles that the pastor left and tried to read. He could only
read small words and was not able to understand what was being said.
The next week the same pastor came back and preached the gospel again.
This time David decided he would listen better and try to understand it.
By the end of the message the gospel made clear sense to him. He repented
of his sins and looked to Christ by faith for salvation. Immediately his
life was forever changed. He began to see his sins like he had never seen
them before. For days he cried over the wretchedness of his life and
desired to see it all change. By God's grace it did all change. Almost
over night the things he once loved he now hated.
Some things were hard to overcome: like cursing. Before he met Christ
every other word was a curse word, and he knew this had to go. He vowed to
God every time he let a curse word slip he would bow right there and
confess it to Him. It was only a few embarrassing times in public bowing
before people and confessing his sin that his dirty mouth left for good.
In all the years that I have known my dad I have never heard him say any
words that would be consider bad.
Smoking was very hard for him to quit as well. He decided to replace his
pack of cigarettes with a little New Testament: every time he went to grab
his cigarettes he would get the Bible instead. This would remind him to
stop and pray that God would take the addiction from him. Within a few
days my dad went from smoking four packs a day: to now almost forty years
later, never smoking even one.
After serving his time, my dad eventually taught himself how to read by
reading the Bible. He found a good church and then went to Bible college.
When I was born he was already serving in the ministry. He met my mom at
the church he went to after prison and they have been faithfully married
for almost thirty years now. This is why I say that I would not be a
Christian today if it weren’t for someone ministering in the prison years
ago. The truth is that I would not even exist if it weren’t for the prison
ministry. Thank you: to all who give yourself to the ministering to those
in the prisons. May God bless your work and the lives it affects.
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